Working Man’s WWE TV Review: 8/30/20 – 9/5/20

Between Roman Reigns finally being a heel, Bayley kicking Sasha Banks’ ass, Mustafa Ali vs. Ricochet on Main Event and WALTER vs. Ridge Holland on NXT UK, the amount of time I’ve spent watching ALL these shows has been… still not worth it. Honestly, not even sure they made spending time on NXT this week alone worth it.

Still though, SmackDown this week was the best WWE TV in ages.

The Week in Review

Best Matches: WWE Women’s Tag Team Title: Shayna Baszler & Nia Jax [c] vs. Bayley & Sasha Banks (SmackDown 9/4/20), Triple Threat Match Qualifier: Dominik Mysterio vs. Seth Rollins (RAW 8/31/20)

Best Promos: Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman (SmackDown 9/4/20), Unbesiegbar: The Ilja Dragunov Story (NXT UK 9/2/20)

Best Angles: Bayley turns on Sasha Banks (SmackDown 9/4/20), Jey Uso Challenges Roman Reigns (SmacKDown 9/4/20)

Who made this worth it?: Roman Reigns, Paul Heyman, Jey Uso, Bayley, Sasha Banks, Sami Zayn

Notable Trends: Roman Reigns is a Paul Heyman Guy, Bayley (Finally) Turns on Sasha Banks, SmackDown Steps Up

RAW (8/31/20)

These are so many THINGS and CONCEPTS happening on this show but nothing is clicking into anything I’m looking forward to watching.

The bulk of this show were four matches to see who got the next WWE Title shot: Lee vs. Ziggler, Owens vs. Orton and Rollins vs. Dominik setup Lee vs. Orton vs. Seth in the main event which setup an Orton vs. Drew McIntyre rematch. Eh. Lee throwing Dolph around was fun but, eh.

Retribution appears to be RAW-exclusive and someone has to pick a lane: either they dominate or they’re goofs. Aleister Black is a one-eyed meanie now, Mickie James is Asuka‘s next challenger, The IIconics are split up, The Hurt Business still talks trash, and for some reason Demi Burnett is STILL here. Are they holding her hostage or something?

RAW Underground trucked along with pretty random debuts for Marina Shafir and Jessamyn Duke, while the best part of the whole show was probably big Titus O’Neil looking real jacked, baby. Give the man another run.

Rating: 4/10

NXT (9/1/20)

The first hour was a few matches with decent wrestlers doing silly things. Legado del Fantasma, Swerve Scott, and Breezango got to do more than they usually do in a Street Fight, Candice LeRae and Tegan Nox continued to feud, and Timothy Thatcher wrestled Bronson Reed (who praise the lord has dropped the THICC BOY stuff) before Austin Theory interfered.

The second hour was a Fatal 4-Way Iron Man Match for the NXT Title between Finn Balor, Johnny Gargano, Tommaso Ciampa and Adam Cole. Even beyond the stalemate finish to setup a match next week, I thought this just sucked. It was four vanilla tweeners who at some point were presumably good wrestlers and probably still are doing every brainless fake wrestling thing they could thing of: two guys always in and two guys always out, cute spots over credibility, time-wasting, chinlocks, and the most coincidental of finishes. “Nearly 40 minutes in, we are back to square one!” – this was Purgatory, The Match.

Rating: 2/10

MAIN EVENT (9/2/20)

This was the rare double Main Event Match Worth Watching.

Between Ricochet vs. Mustafa Ali and Humberto Carrillo vs. Akira Tozawa, Main Event looked like the original 205 Live this week. Both matches didn’t absolutely slay like you might think but they were also the best and most relevant matches on Main Event ages, four guys who don’t always get to let loose actually letting loose.

Rating: 8/10

NXT UK (9/3/20)

This was A Champion And His Challenger special that kind of set NXT UK right back on track after five months of nothing. You know, professional wrestling could use a lot more five months of nothing.

When we last left NXT UK, Ilja Dragunov had won a #1 Contender’s Battle Royal to face WALTER. Here, they aired the last five minutes of that match alongside some promos and a cool Ilja Dragunov feature that fleshed out why he’s such a nut.

They also aired an unseen WALTER vs. Ridge Holland match which had all the WALTER chop goodness and Holland suplex goodness you could want from their first encounter. I probably would’ve been disappointed by this if it aired like normal back in March, but seeing it here in September just made me yearn for what we once had.

Rating: 5/10

SMACKDOWN (9/4/20)

We’ve been waiting for the Bayley or Sasha Banks turn for so long, though at the same time we’ve been waiting for Paul Heyman to do something different for even longer – that he’s doing it with Roman Reigns and started it on the same show Bayley turned on Sasha is some STUFF. This felt like The Main Event from 1988 or something, a monster of a show where the usually annoying and lazy WWE was actually good at their job.

Everything thing besides the best stuff was good and moved things forward too: Sami Zayn‘s bit with production was legit funny, Alexa Bliss and The Fiend is moderately intriguing, and Big E and Heavy Machinery are continuing to track as babyface stars. Respect to The Miz for laying down for E and Otis too.

Bayley & Sasha Banks vs. Shayna Baszler & Nia Jax for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Title would’ve been a good match without the angle at the end, a much meatier match than the Payback title switch. Sasha always tries new stuff with Nia’s and sold the heck out of that leg before Nia’s legitimately awesome double crossbody finish.

The Bayley turn on Sasha absolutely did not need an attempt at a broken neck but hell yeah, Bayley laid in that beating and this thing ruled. Bayley and Sasha were the stars of Performance Center WWE, not just carrying the shows but developing into main event stars. I know they’ll stretch this sucker out even more but am excited to see what comes next.

Now let’s talk about The Big Dog. The Roman Reigns stuff on this show was SO good – he, Heyman and Jey Uso all nailed their roles with Roman all slimmed down looking somehow even MORE like a prototype WWE Superstar, Heyman finally flipping the script and trying something new, and Jey delivering a legitimately layered acting performance to setup him being slotted into the main event Fatal 4-Way and an eventual PPV match with… Roman Reigns.

That doesn’t even mention the awesome bit with Big E being the guy who was taken out to slot Jey in. Wrestling is very enjoyable when it is good!

Rating: 10/10

205 LIVE (9/4/20)

Tehuti Miles might be good but lost to Ariya Daivari, Mansoor beat Colby Corino who is filling out, and Legado del Fantasma attacked Ever-Rise and Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch during a very nothing match. Occasionally interesting but just not good.

Rating: 4/10